THE EXILES
DIRECTOR: KENT MACKENZIE
US, 1961
FACULTY PRESENTER: BRIAN LINDSTROM—Tonight we welcome School of Film instructor and filmmaker Brian Lindstrom (FINDING NORMAL, ALIEN BOY) to introduce one of his favorite films, recently restored for release by author Sherman Alexie and filmmaker Charles Burnett. “THE EXILES is a long-talked about but little seen documentary that proudly carries on the tradition, practiced so well by Lionel Rogosin in ON THE BOWERY, of using real people as actors in stories based on the vivid, personal details of their own lives. In 1957, Mackenzie began interviewing Native Americans in the once glorious, but by then decaying, Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. The interviewees transformed their experiences first into a screenplay and then onto the screen itself as they portrayed themselves in re-enacted scenes from their lives. ‘I always wanted to go someplace where somebody will make me feel different, make me feel happy,’ says a young woman in the film. Says a young man: ‘We want to get out there and just be free.’ These raw, big-hearted searches for home, freedom, and self infuse THE EXILES with a haunted and poignant magic reminiscent of Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans.’”—BL. (72 mins.)